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Comment by cg5280 | Hacker News Reader

Red is optimal from a self preservation perspective but is also the antisocial option. Picking blue saves everyone.

Let me rephrase that for you: red is for people who live in this world and accept it, blue is for people with white knight syndrome.

OR. Red is for people who understand statistics, blue is for people who like to gamble.

Blue is what gamble? there is no gain associated with choosing blue over red, just pointless risk-taking with only at best a zero outcome.

> red is for people who live in this world and accept it

Red is for people who don't think beyond the end of their nose. Okay, you're very smart and understand statistics, but what about the following groups: friends, family, spouses? If they don't pick red, and they die, would you say life is completely fine because there's less "dumb" people or would you possibly think: "hmm, it kinda sucks that they died, maybe I should've picked blue?"

GP is correct that red is the anti-social / myopic option.

> If they don't pick red

Why wouldn't they?

Because most people have empathy and collective consciousness. Apart from ultra-capitalist individualists, most people choose trust and cooperations, because we're hard-wired for that and that's how species develop and thrive (see also, science).

Humans are conditionally cooperative

When we suspect some people are not cooperative then it gets reciprocated

If this was a real thing I’d pick red and then stand outside the red/blue clinic with a sign urging everyone to pick red.

> Picking blue saves everyone.

Everyone picking red saves everyone.

Technically correct, which is the wrong kind of correct. That's an individual framing of a collective problem which fails to capture the social and political ramifications, and all the empathy and solidarity associated with the choice.

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